Women, Politics, and Social Networks in the Sagas of Norwegian Kings

The Old Norse-Icelandic konungasögur (kings’ sagas) have been thoroughly studied for centuries for their vivid representation of Scandinavia’s Viking Age past, but women have frequently been overlooked in scholarly discussions of the political culture found within the texts.

Women, Politics, and Social Networks in the Sagas of Norwegian Kings shows that in their accounts of early Norwegian history, the kings’ sagas portray aristocratic and royal women as able to participate in politics at a similar level to men, but only within certain social parameters. Women are structurally enabled to enter male-dominated political spaces and positions through their participation in, interaction with, and manipulation of, multifaceted aristocratic networks based around interpersonal bonds of kinship, friendship, and lordship.

Inspired by advancements within medieval network theory and studies of aristocratic group behaviour and women’s social agency in medieval historiography, the book demonstrates that the sagas portray elite women as utilising the same network strategies as men and potentially exercising similar levels of political power as a consequence, while being excluded from the institutionalised roles of kingship, chieftaincy, and military and judicial leadership.